Elisa Massimino

Senior Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School

After 27 years with Human Rights First—the last decade as president and CEO—Elisa Massimino recently stepped down from her post to join Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government as a senior fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Massimino is a practitioner-in-residence at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and in the fall, will become the 2019-20 Robert F. Drinan Chair of Human Rights at Georgetown University Law Center. Massimino has a distinguished record of human rights advocacy in Washington. She has testified before Congress dozens of times, writes frequently for mainstream publications and specialized journals, appears regularly in major media outlets and speaks to audiences around the country. Since 2008, the influential Washington newspaper The Hill has consistently named her one of the most effective public advocates in the United States. Prior to her work with Human Rights First, Massimino was a litigator in private practice with the law rm Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells). Massimino is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. Supreme Court Bar.

The Mission of The McCain Institute at ASU is to advance leadership based on security, economic opportunity, freedom, and human dignity, in the United States and around the world.